Icon: enlarge
With her second album Sevdaliza puts on a crown
Album of the week
Sevdaliza - "Shabrang"
There are many artists who use this time of lack of contact for inner contemplation.
But what if you have already passed the phase of intense self-employment?
The all-round artist Sevdaliza already described her debut album "Ison" two years ago as the result of creative self-therapy.
Unnoticed by a wider audience, her intense, intricate electronic music had an unimaginable influence: Billie Eilish, currently the most powerful teenager in the pop world, named Sevdaliza's soul- and body-dissecting ballad "Human" as the source of inspiration for her hit "You Should See Me In A Crown ".
The singer, producer and video artist, who was born in Iran and grew up in the Netherlands, is now putting a crown on herself with her second album.
"Shabrang" is her most accessible, but at the same time her most sublime work.
A spectacle of clarity and silence.
It doesn't take more than a few sinister dulcimer tones, then a little piano dabbing, synthetic noise and a careful string arrangement to make "Joanna", the opening track, one of the best ballads of the year.
And of course Sevdaliza's lamentation, alienated only slightly with autotune, asks a lover to release her from her spell: "Please stop ruining me, woman".
Andreas Borcholte's playlist
Photo:
Christian O. Bruch / laif
Sevdaliza:
Joanna
Elif:
Just me
SZA feat. Ty Dolla $ ign:
Hit Different
All this violence:
others
Charlotte Brandi feat. Dirk von Lowtzow:
Wind
Sophie Hunger:
Beetroot made from arsenic
Bill Callahan:
Protest Song
Nina Hagen:
Unity
Shygirl:
Freak
Noga Erez:
You So Done
Go to Spotify playlist Right arrow Go to Apple Music playlist Right arrow
One suspects that this Joanna is her own narcissistic side, from which she would like to free herself, but is still existentially attached to her.
There are many such dilemmas of ambiguity on "Shabrang", from which the album draws its tension despite the calm.
The album title is borrowed from Persian mythology, one could probably translate it as "all colors of the night".
Sevdaliza extracts the maximum of feeling from these facets of darkness.
"Lamp Lady", a finely clacking trip-hop, or "Habibi", a modern R&B ballad reminiscent of FKA Twigs, are interwoven with bright pop moments.
"All Rivers At Once" actually seems to be overflowing with ideas, exultant fiddle, space synths lasing into psychedelic orbits, fluttering percussion, at the end an impatient piano: everything wants, everything has to go.
To the light.
"Watch me dancing in the dark", Sevdaliza sings, but also: "I don't wanna feel pain / Pour the light in me".
She had to write the songs in order to regain her trust and her belief in life and love, she said in an interview, the album is to be understood as a warning letter to herself not to slide back into depression.
"Is there anyone there / To get me out of my head", she sings, distorted into pleading, in "Habibi", the Arabic word for darling.
display
Sevdaliza
Shabrang
Label: Butler Records (H'Art)
Label: Butler Records (H'Art)
approx € 15.49
Price query time
04.09.2020 6:02 p.m.
No guarantee
Icon: Info
Order at AmazonIcon: amazon
Order from ThaliaIcon: thalia
Product reviews are purely editorial and independent.
Via the so-called affiliate links above, we usually receive a commission from the dealer when purchasing.
More information here
Not everything affects so directly.
"Human Nature" got too esoteric, and "Darkest Hour" abandons the suspenseful mood of the album for an all too unambiguous dance track.
"It's a perfect world, I'm the perfect girl," she implores.
But it is precisely the absence of perfection, the often fragile-looking openness of the compositions and moods, also for clearer influences from Iranian music, that makes "Shabrang" an event.
Incidentally, the blue eye on the cover motif does not come from abuse, as one might think, rather it symbolizes the pattern of her emotional wounds that she has researched in recent years.
The beauty of easing pain.
(8.7)
Briefly listened to:
Sophie Hunger - "Hallucinations"
There is nothing that Berlin-based Swiss Sophie Hunger cannot do, except boredom: electro-pop, clever chansons, krautrock - all of this can be found on this intense, live solo album about creativity and loneliness.
"I'm the one who makes the music", she defies the toxic "Alpha Venom" in one song.
Super heroine.
(8.5)
Joy Denalane - "Let Yourself Be Loved"
It's logical that the country's best soul singer is now the first German artist who is allowed to release an album on the legendary Motown label: sometimes languishing, sometimes powerful vintage soul about the longing for love - fired by the pain of exclusion, that the Berliner experiences as a black woman in Germany.
(7.5)
Bill Callahan - "Gold Record"
"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" is the beginning of the 18th album by US folk singer Bill Callahan.
A joke, of course, but you can guess: The beloved fellow with the slow baritone voice hopes to finally get the same recognition as the greats: Cash, Cooder, Cohen.
All are amusingly summoned in Callahan's surprisingly warm-hearted creaking.
Golden!
(8.0)
Matthias Schweighöfer - "Hobby"
To be fair, one has to say that the singing actor Schweighöfer slows down his critics in the beautiful, self-reflective piece "Anfang".
Smart move!
Unfortunately there are 14 more songs: Generic, German mood pop hit, of which there is already far too much.
Some hobbies don't have to become a profession.
(2.0)